I can hardly believe that I'm going to write these words: I did not enjoy The Wordy Shipmates. Anyone who knows me and my love of Sarah Vowell will be *shocked* by this, as am I. But that fact remains that I found it boring. A slog. Too totally Puritanical.

I know what she was attempting to do - put a human face on the Puritans who founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony, draw parallels to our modern evangelical (is that phrase an oxymoron?) Christian country, and make sharp distinctions between the groups when appropriate (newsflash: even Puritans valued reading and learning, folks). But she gets so bogged down in telling the life stories of so many characters that it's hard to stay focused on her point. Which she only returns to every 50 pages when she comes up for air from the biography of, say, Henry Vane. I know, I don't know who that is either.

To me, Vowell is at her best when she weaves her own story and outlook on modern day America with the forgotten history of this country. The Wordy Shipmates, however, is essentially the re-telling of forgotten history with maybe six paragraphs of her analysis inserted randomly throughout it's 254 pages. This isn't NEARLY enough Sarah Vowell for me. So I leave the book dissatisfied.

One bright spot: I learned that the Hutchison Parkway heading into NYC through the boroughs is names after a rather feisty Puritan named Anne Hutchison who was banished from the Bay Colony because she questioned beliefs of the church. At least I can think about that next time I'm in traffic...